Floyd Mayweather Jr. lands a punch against Canelo Alvarez in the third round at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday in Las Vegas. MARK J. TERRILL, AP

LAS VEGAS – Muhammad Ali had his Leisure World, too.

He was so uncontested in his heavyweight lair, that he turned much of his career into a world tour. Richard Dunn, Ruud Luebbers, Joe Bugner, a rematch with Joe Bugner, Jurgen Blin, Jean-Pierre Coopman. He turned a normally brutal profession into a pilgrimage.

Floyd Mayweather does not travel that well.

He lives here, his gym is across the freeway from the MGM Grand, and he invites the world to come to his side and peel him grapes.

On Saturday night he effectively mocked his own grandiose promotion by performing on one parallel plane while 23-year-old Canelo Alvarez flailed in another.

Nice work if you can get it, especially when it isn’t work.

Mayweather moved another step toward getting to his finish line undefeated with this blowout of Canelo, who would do well to move up to 160 pounds, where he will be challenged but not mocked.

“Chess and checkers,” Mayweather explained it in the weeks leading up to this, and there is no question who the king was Saturday night, and who was the pawn.

In fact, it seemed that the theme of the show – “The One” – might refer to the number of rounds Canelo would get.

But, since this is Vegas, hold all tickets.

Judge C.J. Ross ruled this virtual shutout a … draw? Even the 116-112 and 117-111 verdicts on the other two cards seemed ludicrous.

Maybe boxing needs a good dose of voter suppression.

“I’m not in control of what the judges do,” Mayweather said. “That’s a strong, young fighter over there. My dad (trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr.) said I was a little tight, and he was right. If I had attacked earlier I might have gotten the stoppage, but we had a great game plan.”

As usual, Mayweather respected his foe enough to get into frightfully good shape and concoct a plan. Instead of launching right hands, he went jabbing from the beginning, and Canelo cooperated by standing frozen for the first two rounds.

By the time Canelo decided to fight, Mayweather had found alleys for a right that, in terms of impact and accuracy, is still strangely underrated. By the middle of the fight he was toying with Canelo, getting himself stuck in corners to test himself, taking a couple of unnecessary shots, just to say he’d been in a fight.

In the ninth round Canelo came after him and Mayweather responded with his version of the cycle – left jab, right lead, right cross and uppercut.

“He’s very intelligent and elusive,” Canelo said. “The frustration was getting in there, but he is a great fighter.”

Clearly the catch weight of 152 pounds was unkind to Canelo. He came in at 152 on the button while Mayweather weighed 1501/2, but then Canelo entered the ring at 165. That hardly ever works against anyone, let alone a 15-year champion.

“I woke up this morning at 146,” Mayweather said, smiling. “I had to call my chef.”

Canelo had listened to Mayweather’s party line long enough, during an exhausting continental tour. On Friday, when Mayweather wanted him to hold one of his belts, Canelo just turned away.

He was equally irritated during the fight, busting Maywether low a couple of times and earning a pointed-finger lecture from referee Kenny Bayless. After the 11th round, the two woofed at each other after the bell.

Mayweather barely threw a punch in the 12th round, buzzing from rope to rope as Canelo stalked around like a frazzled cartoon rifleman.

With that, Mayweather raked home a guaranteed $41.5 million and pushed his career till to $350 million, much of which he still has.

The lead-in was the much anticipated 140-pound match between champion Danny Garcia and Lucas Matthysse, who had been cracking everybody’s ribs for the past two years.

But after the sixth round, Matthysse was fighting in a fogbank. Garcia’s jabs had made a scar out of his right eye, and Garcia was merciless enough to keep reducing his opponent’s vision as he won a unanimous decision.

Matthysse went down in the 11th, the first time he’d met the canvas in his career. But Garcia, so smart and composed through most of the night, unwisely spent the final half-minute in a mindless brawl with an opponent who could win no other way. It was odd because Matthysse had already knocked out Garcia’s mouthpiece early in the 11th.

“That was a good shot,” the unbeaten Garcia said, laughing. “But I showed I’m a great champion. If you can get out of Philadelphia, you can make it anywhere.”

Maybe he’ll be the next to try to make it here. Not that it matters who happens to be the nearest bystander, the next time Mayweather plays 1-man powerball.

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